Fantasy Football Tight End ADP Report: Mike Gesicki, Isaiah Likely, Cade Otton and Ben Sinnott

Over the last week, I’ve looked at the biggest ADP movers for running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks. Today, we turn to the least heralded but just as important fantasy football position: tight end. As always, FantasySP’s ADP tool makes it easy to track trends in average draft position over the last week. Here are this week’s biggest risers and fallers at tight end:

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Fantasy Football Tight End ADP Risers

Mike Gesicki, Cincinnati Bengals (-7.00)

I only looked at the top 24 tight ends for this exercise, so Gesicki barely qualifies at TE23 in ADP. But even that far down draft boards, a full seven-pick rise over the course of seven days is massive.

What makes this rise even more impressive is that there is no obvious reason for its existence. Gesicki appeared in the Bengals' first preseason game but didn’t record a single stat in his eight snaps. In fact, the biggest waves he seemed to make were due to his poor blocking. 

Poor blocking is nothing new for Gesicki, who has always fit the “big slot” mold that is both tantalizing and problematic for fantasy managers. On the one hand, receiving is how tight ends score points in fantasy football. Snaps in the slot correlate with deeper routes and more targets, leading to better fantasy production.

Being bad at blocking can even be construed as a plus: Every down where a tight end is asked to pass block is a down where they aren’t scoring fantasy points. Gesicki passes this test with flying colors, having been asked to pass-block just four times in his 2023 season in New England — only last year’s Bengal tight end, Tanner Hudson, had a lower pass-block rate. However, being bad at blocking can keep a tight end off the field, and you can’t score fantasy points on the sideline: Hudson never broke a 50% snap share in his 12 games in 2023. 

With that in mind, I can’t get on board with Gesicki’s rise in ADP. He’s likely to play a part-time role and is more likely to find himself fifth on the Bengals in targets (behind three WRs and a running back) than third. Even all the way down at TE23, there are plenty of players below him who can be projected for larger roles in their respective offenses: Cade Otton (TE24), Juwan Johnson (TE30), Theo Johnson (TE31) and Greg Dulcich (TE32), to name a few.

With how replaceable TE2s are, even in two-TE leagues, you want to chase target upside with late tight end picks, which Gesicki hardly has in a crowded Bengals offense.

Isaiah Likely, Baltimore Ravens (-3.47)

Again, no obvious reason presents itself for Likely’s rise over the past week. Mark Andrews, the biggest roadblock in Likely’s bid for fantasy relevancy, was reportedly in a car accident this morning. But A: That won’t have impacted ADP yet and B: The veteran is thankfully reported to have escaped unharmed.

Instead, this may simply be a case of training camp hype season working its magic. Everyone from John Harbaugh, to Sports Illustrated, to the New York Times, not to mention plenty of beat writers on Twitter, has gushed about the third-year tight end’s performance. 

But what can we really expect from Likely in terms of fantasy production? When Andrews is healthy, not much. Likely averaged just 1.4 half-PPR points in nine 2023 games where Andrews was on the field. His role would have to expand massively for him to reach fantasy relevance with Andrews healthy, and there has been no indication that that will happen.

Most likely (see what I did there?), he will simply be a “handcuff,” only worth considering if Andrews misses time. Unfortunately, a tight end handcuff wasn’t worth drafting at his old ADP, and Likely is certainly not a good selection at his new TE18 ADP. 

Fantasy Football Tight End ADP Fallers

Cade Otton, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+4.87)

It’s starting to appear as though fantasy managers are just pulling names out of a hat to select TE2s. Once again, nearly five full picks in ADP is a significant trend, but I can’t find any reason to explain Otton’s fall. All recent reports on the third-year tight end are positive — mostly normal training camp fluff, but positive nonetheless. His fall may be related to Gesicki’s rise, as they are back-to-back in ADP. Otherwise, it’s inexplicable. 

But is it worth buying the dip on Otton? I say yes. It is true that Otton’s 2023 was entirely unremarkable: He finished as the TE19 in total points but just TE23 in average points with a negligible 5.5 per game. However, there is some reason for optimism.

Otton ranked second among all tight ends in routes in his sophomore season with a very impressive 568. And he wasn’t just a traditional in-line tight end either: 62% of those routes came from either out wide or in the slot. Of course, something has to give for Otton’s production to be so mediocre on such high route participation.

Otton was mostly doing cardio out there, posting abysmal marks in yards and targets per route run. With that said, running routes is still the first step to fantasy production. If the Buccaneers change their scheme, or one of their top WRs gets hurt, Otton is already in place to potentially rack up targets. If you’re in a league where drafting two tight ends makes sense, it’s better to take a chance on a profile like Otton’s than one like Gesicki’s.   

Ben Sinnott, Washington Commanders (+4.70)

Finally, we’ve got a trend that makes sense. After earning some unrealistic expectations during rookie hype season, Sinnott is trending down as we get a sense of what his role is likely to be in the Commanders’ offense.

Specifically, Sinnott played zero snaps with Washington’s starters in their first preseason game, seemingly behind not only the ageless Zach Ertz but also John Bates in the pecking order. To his credit, Sinnott did shine on the snaps he did play, racking up 57 yards on three catches and posting the highest PFF Grade of any 2024 offensive draft pick.

But the success of last year’s rookie tight ends has made fantasy managers forget the age-old wisdom: “Don’t trust a rookie tight end.” The tight end position has one of the hardest adjustments from college to the pros, and even talented players often require a year, if not multiple years, to truly break out.

Let someone else in your league draft Sinnott — they’ll drop him eventually after a few weeks of low snap counts, at which point you can add him to your watch list in case his role grows in the back half of the season.